A former law firm office manager and bookkeeper who was accused of writing fraudulent checks on her deceased boss's personal accounts pleaded guilty Tuesday to fraud in Miami federal court.
Sara San Martin, 39, also known as Sara Echeverria, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of bank fraud for allegedly writing checks from the personal accounts of the late Miami maritime attorney William Huggett.
Prosecutors alleged she wrote a check against Huggett's personal account at BankUnited for $236,800 to pay down her home mortgage. They said she wrote a second check for $23,079 against Huggett's money-market account at Wachovia Bank to pay off a loan on a 2003 Dodge Ram 150.
The checks were written after Huggett died of a stroke on Aug. 31, 2004 at the age of 65. But the checks displayed dates that preceded his death, according to a federal indictment handed up by a grand jury in June.
San Martin originally denied the charges in August. The guilty plea is not the result of any agreement with the government because she hasn't entered into one with the U.S. Attorney's office. She has been free on bond since her arrest in July.
In court Tuesday, San Martin tearfully answered questions posed to her by U.S. District Judge Judge Adalberto Jordan, who at one point sent a box of tissues over to her. Jordan detailed the charges brought against her and questioned her about her understanding them so he could decide if she was mentally able to enter her plea and wasn’t pressured or coerced into it.
"Did you forge Mr. Huggett's signature on the checks," Jordan asked San Martin at one point.
"Yes," she replied.
Jordan accepted San Martin's guilty plea and scheduled sentencing for Feb. 1.
After the hearing, San Martin declined comment. Her attorney, Brian Tannebaum of Miami said the emotions San Martin showed during the change of plea hearing indicate the emotional effect the case has had on her.
"We reviewed the evidence and looked at the entire case and Ms. San Martin decided that it was in her best interest to enter a plea and move on with her life," he said. "She's devastated by all of the events that have led up to today."
In August, Tannebaum said San Martin was innocent of the charges and that he had not seen any evidence that she took any money that didn’t belong to her.
San Martin could face a sentence of up to 30 years in prison for each count as well as up to $1 million in fines for each count. In an attempt to mitigate the sentence, Tannebaum said he plans to argue that the checks were written for less money than the U.S. Attorney's office alleges in the indictment. He declined to identify a figure.
Foster-Steers referred questions to a spokeswoman who could not be immediately reached for comment.
Huggett's widow, Jacqueline, declined comment, as did Anna Scornavacca, the inventory attorney appointed by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Joseph Farina Jr. to oversee the remainder of the Huggett Firm's cases. Supporters of Huggett in the courtroom gallery could be heard criticizing San Martin's tearful responses during the hearing.
It is unclear what effect San Martin's guilty plea may have on a civil case in which she is also named as a defendant along with nine other former employees of the Huggett Law Firm. That case, which is pending in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, is a dispute between Jacqueline Huggett and former employees of the Huggett Law Firm.
Jacqueline Huggett alleges that San Martin and former Huggett Law Firm associate Jay Wingate paid themselves and other employees $739,000. She alleged they misled her about the nature of some of the payments and did not tell her about others. Employees said they possess signed documentation to support their claim that Huggett had given them commitments for bonuses and vacation pay.
Bill Huggett Update
Bye Bye Jay Wingate. Hello Peter Sotolongo?
Sorry for the lack of posts, folks, I had some lawyering to do. Ok, actually I went skiing in Colorado for a couple days. By the way, the powder was very nice.
Anyway, news here that Jay Wingate has agreed to drop out of the law business in the wake of allegations involving inside Royal Caribbean settlement info:
Hmm. Does anyone think this is over yet?Embattled lawyer Jay Wingate agreed Thursday to drop out of 77 shipboard injury cases after Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines claimed his firm paid a cruise employee for inside information. Wingate said he is closing his practice, but the future of the cases is uncertain.
The Miami-based cruise company filed a motion two weeks ago to disqualify Wingate's law firm from pursuing the lawsuits against it. An attached affidavit from a fired Royal Caribbean employee said she accepted cash from two Wingate investigators in exchange for information about lawsuit settlement authorization, including the amount of money the cruise operator was willing to pay to settle cases.
At a hearing Thursday before Senior Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Herb Stettin, Wingate's attorney Miles A. McGrane III of McGrane Nosich & Ganz in Coral Gables announced Wingate would withdraw as counsel from the pending cases.
Royal Caribbean attorney Curtis Mase, a partner with Mase & Lara in Miami, requested a brief recess and returned to relay his client's elation."They are quite surprised and amenable," he said.
The fired employee's name was blacked out in the court filing, but the Daily Business Review obtained an unredacted copy identifying her as Wanda Ballestas, a former supervisor for crew claims in the company's risk management department. Ballestas acknowledged accepting a series of $500 payments for Royal Caribbean's confidential settlement projections and a $2,000 Christmas bonus, according to the affidavit. She admitted passing information on 20 plaintiffs to Wingate investigators Maria Elena Parilla and Nelson Ayala.
Wingate and McGrane vigorously denied Ballestas' claims at the hearing and said dropping out of the cases was not an admission of wrongdoing.
But the convoluted legal saga did not end with Wingate's withdrawal from the cases.
Peter Sotolongo, a partner in The Wingate Firm, said in an interview that he is starting his own firm and hopes to take over many of the cases against Royal Caribbean. Although he was named in Royal Caribbean's motion to disqualify, Sotolongo came into the hearing expecting he would be in line to take over the bulk of the cases the firm was dropping. But the potential hiring of another firm to help those clients was a setback to that effort.
Royal Caribbean would oppose Sotolongo taking on the remaining cases, Mase said. "If Peter Sotolongo comes to represent any of these plaintiffs, then at that time Royal Caribbean will take the action that they deem to be appropriate," he said. "I think it's probably fair to say that Royal Caribbean would oppose someone who was an attorney in the firm, a very small firm I might add, which is alleged to have engaged in improper conduct."
When It Rains, It Pours
If you're not busy defeating allegations that you ripped off Bill Huggett's widow, you're facing a motion like this:
Two investigators with a Miami law firm paid a Royal Caribbean Cruises employee to obtain inside information on the amount of money the company would be willing to pay to settle workplace injury claims, the employee alleges in a sworn court affidavit.Hmm. This story also appeared in Joan's column in today's Miami Herald. She usually doesn't run a story if the DBR is also covering it.
The affidavit by the Royal Caribbean supervisor is attached to motions asking Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stuart Simons to disqualify the Wingate Law Firm of Miami from 75 pending lawsuits brought on behalf of cruise line crew members and passengers by the firm. A hearing on the Miami-based cruise line’s disqualification requests is set for Thursday.
The fired employee, whose name has been redacted from the affidavit, acknowledged accepting $500 payments in exchange for Royal Caribbean’s confidential settlement projections and received a $2,000 Christmas bonus, according to her statement.
The employee, a former supervisor for crew claims in the company’s risk management department, said she passed information on about 20 plaintiffs to Wingate investigators Maria Elena Parilla and Nelson Ayala.
The law firm vigorously denies the employee’s claims.
“This is just an effort to put us out of business. There was no truth about anything said in there,” said Jay Wingate, head of the law firm. “The whole thing is stupid” and “utter gibberish.”
Any contacts between the firm and Royal Caribbean or its employees were part of normal settlement discussions, Wingate said.
The affidavit offered no total dollar value of payments accepted by the supervisor, but payments of $500 each in 20 cases plus the Christmas bonus she received would total $12,000.
Royal Caribbean did not return several telephone calls seeking comment.
“What you’re talking about is what amounts to a form of commercial bribery,” said Curtis J. Mase of Mase Gassenheimer & Lara in Miami. He represents RCL.
“The overarching purpose of the motion is to seek to disqualify an attorney who engaged in very improper conduct,” Mase said.
The dozens of identical motions filed Tuesday seek to disqualify Wingate and firm attorney Peter Sotolongo from the cases.
Did Curtis or his client shop this or put out a press release?
We all know the dirty business of some firms hiring investigators to generate clients. But something about this doesn't sit right.
I look forward to Jay's response brief. Email me if someone has more to share on this story.
